Before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination“But what did we do wrong? We were just at home.”(1)
These are the words of 14 year old Ghassan Ghabeen from Beit Lahia in Northern Gaza, spoken after his house was shelled by Israeli forces on April 10th, 2006 rendering Ghassan homeless
with his parents and six brothers and sisters. His sister Hadeel did not survive the attack.
But these words could have been uttered by one of the 400,000 alestinian refugees living in Lebanon, many of whom have been ade refugees or internally displaced yet again by Israel’s ombardment that is continuing in Lebanon as I write.(2)

“In a heartbeat.” That is how fast it must have taken 18 year old Hashim and the rest of the Al-Huneidi family to realize after the massacre of 426 residents of their town, Al-Lydd, that they would have to flee to safer ground. “In a heartbeat.” That is also how fast Hashim’s son, Samer, would return to Al-Lydd today—if he only could.